University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points Mailbag
November 27, 2008 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
Nov. 27, 2008
by Lee Pace, Extra Points
Answers, answers. Everyone wants answers. I come up lame, though, in wrapping up the Tar Heels' 41-10 implosion against N.C. State last Saturday into a tidy package of pat explanations. It is not that easy and sports don't work that way.
Think back to Carolina's basketball loss to Kansas in the Final Four last spring. Who in their wildest dreams would have predicted the Jayhawks popping the Heels with a 28-point first-half deficit and an eventual 84-66 defeat?
"We came out more casually than we'd like to," Roy Williams said, "and they hit us right between the eyes and kept hammering."
Williams also referenced one of his pet practice phrases, "tiptoe through the tulips," that he uses when a player or the team loses its focus and tenacity and aggressiveness. It seems inexplicable that a team in the Final Four in basketball or facing its closest and fiercest rival in football would come out with less than complete resolve and fire. But there is no question that the Wolfpack popped the Heels between the eyes and kept hammering Saturday.
And once things start going badly, the momentum piles up and the game gets out of hand. The Wolfpack behind QB Russell Wilson dominated the first half, and the Tar Heels were fortunate to be trailing only 10-3 at intermission. They finally generated some offensive juice in the third quarter on an eight-play, 60-yard drive and pulled within a touchdown. At long last there was a little spark on the Tar Heel sideline and crackling through the home crowd. But State came right back with another scoring drive, stripped the ball on the ensuing kick-off and scored on the next play. The rout was on.
Butch Davis has seen the scenario before. His Miami Hurricanes in 1998 were 7-2 when they traveled to Syracuse and "got our doors blown off" by the Orangemen by a 66-13 margin. "We had turnovers and sacks and we looked like a junior high team against a great team," Davis says.
A week later, they upset No. 3 UCLA, 49-45.
"Adversity's always going to happen in your program, whether it's injuries or whether it's a disappointing loss," Davis says. "I think it says a lot about the character of your players, and it says a lot about the integrity of your coaching staff. How do you talk about adversity? You have to make sense of, and focus on, the real core belief systems of your football team and your program and how you're going to deal with those kinds of things."
The mantra this week has been to reconnect with the kind of football the Tar Heels played for a whole game against Rutgers, Miami, UConn, Notre Dame, Boston College and Georgia Tech and for two-and-a-half quarters against Virginia Tech.
"You take them back to moments of success," Davis says. "You remind them, `Hey, you have done good things. You have beaten some good football teams.' We have played well."
The challenge this week grew in difficulty with word that senior linebacker Mark Paschal suffered a spine injury against State and would not play again--not against Duke nor in a potential bowl game. Paschal's loss is significant, though fellow senior Chase Rice and true freshman Ebele Okakpu will attempt to fill the void at middle linebacker.
"Chase can be a good leader in Mark's absence and is comfortable in that role as the middle linebacker," Davis says. "He's been there a lot and he's been there as the middle linebacker in nickel situations. The other caveat is that Bruce Carter and Quan Sturdivant, the guys who flank him, are about to enter their 24th game as starters. So it's not like Chase is talking to a couple of rookies who don't know where to go. They're at a point now they can make eye contact and there's a lot of awareness."
I have not read any comments from Cam Sexton about T.J. Yates returning to the starting job for the State game. What were his thoughts on not starting and having to come in when the game was pretty much over? When you go into a game at that time are you really going to give 100 percent?
Derrick Sims, Timberlake N.C.
Sexton met with the news media after the State game and provided this answer:
"I'm in this thing for whatever's best for the team, and I'm not being politically correct--I want to win first," he said. "Of course I'm upset about not starting because I'm a competitor; I want to be out there playing, I want to be out there with my teammates and I'm going to do what the coaches tell me to do. But if I'm not playing, I want my teammates to win."
My inbox has been an interesting Petri dish in sports fans' emotions the last two weeks--with opinions roughly 50-50 from those who thought Sexton should have been yanked during the Maryland game and others who watched Yates' struggles against State and railed that Sexton had ever been removed from the lineup.
Essentially, Davis and offensive coordinator and QB coach John Shoop went back to Yates based on the entirety of what he had accomplished over the 2007 season and the first two-plus games of 2008. Yates won the job in the 2007 pre-season--as much for his decision-making ability as anything else--and played well enough and improved enough to keep the edge over Sexton and Mike Paulus. Presuming him to be recovered from his broken ankle, Yates was restored to the starting job. The fact that Sexton was not as efficient as you'd like in the Maryland game worked into the decision as well.
What no one could anticipate was the sluggish performance Yates turned in after his two-month layoff. Yates will start again against Duke. Davis said Wednesday he had had a good week of practice and had ironed out some mechanical issues that affected his throwing precision against State.
"But until you're under fire in a game, you never know," Davis said. "He's conscious of it so he's had a chance to work on it. Last week he just kind of jumped into the regular routine of practice and the tempo you have in practice. And then all of a sudden, the game speed and game tempo is a little faster. I used the analogy of golf. If you're hitting into the woods to the right on the first three holes of the Masters, it's kind of a hard time to fix your swing. You've just got to roll with it until you can get to the practice tee after the round."
I wish Coach Davis would hear those of us who want the competition to be against the other team and not between our quarterbacks. If he'd develop two great ones, he could rotate, that would be such an asset.
Suzy Barile, Cary
Thanks for the question but there are two problems with your concept.
One, competition is always a part of an athletic team. Most coaches don't want to have players on their team who are afraid of competition. The very process of working hard to outperform someone else is part of what makes the engine run--whether it's on an athletic team or in the business marketplace. Competition, for example, is what gave Shaun Draughn the avenue to come from nowhere to earn the starting job and eclipse the 100-yard rushing mark against UConn and Virginia.
Two, it is rare that an offense thrives with two quarterbacks rotating or sharing some degree of playing time. A team needs a leader, a "go-to" guy, under center. Quarterback is the single most important position on the field and teams are almost always more consistent and fluid when they know who the quarterback is. Jockeying back and forth is a distraction to the players and team. Sometimes you have to do that--Mack Brown did so with Jason Stanicek and Mike Thomas in the early 1990s and with Chris Keldorf and Oscar Davenport in 1997, and John Bunting did so with Joe Dailey and Sexton in 2006. There's an old adage in the coaching business: "If you have two quarterbacks, you don't have a quarterback."
It has been great the past four years watching Mark Pascal develop and play for the University of North Carolina, and my family and I were very saddened by the news of a spinal cord injury. We hear the long-term prognosis is good and we thank the Lord for that. In the tradition of great Carolina linebackers, we respect Mark for his on the field performances as well as his role model approach to life off the field. He is a real winner the kids can look up to. Please send our get-well-soon wishes as well as all our prayers and we hope to see you on Sundays someday soon! We love ya brother!
Tim Chilton, Charlotte, University of Oklahoma
Well said. It was indeed a shock to learn that Paschal cannot play for the Tar Heels Saturday. He will be missed.
Paschal played in 47 consecutive games for the Tar Heels--11 primarily on special teams as a freshman in 2005 and then moving into the starting lineup to begin the 2006 season. He looked a step slow and certainly unsure of himself in that 2006 opener against Rutgers (a 21-16 defeat) and was replaced in the starting lineup by Victor Worsley. Paschal's intelligence, toughness and passion for the game were never in question, and he kept working hard and by mid-season of his junior year was playing regularly at middle linebacker.
"The guy is a football player," defensive coordinator Everett Withers said in August. "I was impressed with him in the spring and have been more impressed since camp began. There are always a couple of guys, when you sit and talk football, they `get it.' Mark `gets it.' He understands football. It's important for us to have him on the field."
A lot of interesting kids have come through the Tar Heel football program over the last 20 years, and Paschal is certainly one of the most impressive--on and off the field. He has composure and carriage beyond his age. He's a coach on the sidelines and on the field--sometimes you'll see him diagramming defensive schemes on the greaseboard for younger players during a game. And no matter how many physical ills he might be dealing with at any given moment, he'd shake them off and get back in the game.
Paschal not only gets football, but he "gets" the big picture, as these two snippets from a media briefing Tuesday indicate:
"It could have been a lot worse. I'm so glad I'm not in a wheelchair or something like that," he said.
"It would have been nice to finish my career out, but I'm not the one with the master plan."
Paschal is a management major and says he'll enter the job market in the spring. He'll make someone an excellent worker but it won't be long before he'll be a boss. He's given the idea of coaching a little thought as well.
"If I get away from the game and find I really, really miss it, it might be something to come back to," Paschal said.
Keep an eye on this one.
Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace is in his 19th year of chronicling Carolina football through "Extra Points." He'll answer questions about the Tar Heels weekly throughout the season through his "Extra Points Mailbag" and on the pregame show for the Tar Heel Sports Network. Email him at leepace@nc.rr.com and include your name and hometown. No recruiting questions, please.
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